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H is for: Hawkeye

Hawkeye is probably my favourite superhero/assassin/complex character with issues. I should probably start by clarifying which Hawkeye I mean. I mean Clint Barton, though Kate Bishop is also very awesome and I love what I’ve read about her in Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye and in Kieron Gillen’s Young Avengers.

My love of Clint Barton started from the cartoon series Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (why did it get cancelled? WHY?!) and then I was super excited when Jeremy Renner was cast as Hawkeye in The Avengers (because I think Renner is awesome). I was a bit gutted by Hawkeye’s plot in The Avengers, you couldn’t see much of his sense of humour, or his relationship with Black Widow/Natasha Romanof and the rest of SHIELD. But I’m super looking forward to The Avengers: Age of Ultron because by the sounds of things he’s going to have a much bigger role.

I was really hoping that one of the end credit scenes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier would be Clint on the phone to Natasha saying “I was on a mission, I get back and everything’s in chaos! What the hell happened?!” Because it would be nice to have some mention as to where he’s been during the past three movies – at least we saw Bruce Banner at the end of Iron Man 3! I hope something’s said in The Avengers: Age of Ultron…

I love Fraction’s Hawkeye (and can’t wait for the third volume trade paper back to come out next month) because it shows what Clint Barton gets up to on his days off when he’s not being an Avenger or working for SHIELD. It shows how human he is. I like Clint Barton because he’s relatable, he can get hurt and even killed by things that Thor can just brush off. That’s probably why I like Natasha and Fury and any other “regular human” in a world of superheroes.

Clint Barton is just a guy with a bow with a terrible past, who tries to do the right thing but doesn’t always succeed – because he’s human. Hawkeye is awesome and I love him. If I could choose who could have their own movie it would be Hawkeye – although Black Panther comes a close second.